


Second Portrait

by animefreak



Category: Raven (1992)
Genre: F/M, evil siblings, greed - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-23
Updated: 2010-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animefreak/pseuds/animefreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonathan solves a mystery and apprehends a murderer</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Portrait

The Second Portrait

disclaimer: Raven and company belong to Frank Lupo, et al. Just borrowing them for a bit of angst and villainy.

time .......... 1993  
place ......... Hawaii  
spoilers ...... doubtful

 

Daybreak. Jonathan Raven awoke feeling tired. He'd felt that way for weeks now, ever since Libby had died in the explosion that destroyed the small Lear jet in which she was traveling. He was trying to continue his life, to go on, to find his son. But it was an effort just to get up some days.

He slid out of bed and into the shower. The hot water sluicing down his body felt good. He dried off, got dressed and walked into his back yard. He crossed to his meditation platform and sat down. A cool breeze played over him as he tried to center down and clear his mind.

Something caught his attention. He looked around. He could have sworn he saw a light in the house next door. Which was unlikely since the house was -- empty. A light came on in the upstairs windows. A shadow moved across the windows. There was someone in the house, a very bold someone.

He padded across the yard and through the tall foliage separating his back yard from that of the house next door. He walked around to the front door. It was unlocked. Deja vu. He slid inside and looked up. There was a light on in the loft studio. He could hear soft sounds as someone moved around up there. He took the stairs silently.

A woman stood looking at one of the paintings still stored in the loft. Her hair was dark, medium brown, flowing down over her shoulders, almost to the small of her back. She wore black, slacks and shirt, and flat heeled shoes.

"What are you doing here?"

She jumped and froze. Oddly, she did not turn to face him. She carefully allowed the painting she was holding by the edge, to settle back against the one behind it. "I'm sorry, I didn't -- I -- I didn't think I'd be disturbing anyone this early."

The voice was soft, apologetic, familiar.

He approached her, moving up on her right side. She turned away from him, noticing the movement. He frowned again. "Miss Cheyne?"

"Yes. I know, we didn't have time to -- discuss -- I mean -- Oh, dear. Harve just doesn't have much time and I -- I thought if I came really early I wouldn't disturb anyone." Her voice trailed off. She sniffed.

It dawned on him she was fighting very hard not to cry. His heart went out to her suddenly. He moved around to her left to see if he could get a look at her. She kept her head down, her hair falling in a fine curtain, concealing most of her face. She seemed intent on keeping her hands hidden as well, tucked under crossed arms.

"Why don't you just let Harve handle it?" The question came out more harshly than he had meant it to. "Do I really frighten you that much?"

She shook her head. He thought she was peeking at him through the curtain of hair. "I'm sorry. I -- I'm -- uh -- agoraphobic." She swallowed hard. "I'm -- not very comfortable away from home."

He reached a hand through the hair and caught her chin. She stiffened, froze. No one touched her, not even Harve. He gently applied pressure to make her lift her head. She did, wide hazel eyes frightened and wary behind the screen of hair. The curtain fell away from a heart shaped face, the bones a little too prominent for beauty. Her pupils dilated. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car.

He discovered the reason for hiding. Her right cheek was scarred, as though she had been in a fire. He looked at her, letting her know he had noticed. The scarring was smooth, obviously already worked on to minimize the trauma. "Not so bad, is it?" he asked her softly.

She sniffed. Her eyes looked a bit watery. "No," she answered in a very small voice. She was amazed. He was looking her in the eye, not avoiding the horrible scar, just gazing into her eyes, taking it all in. He didn't look away, didn't look appalled, didn't look like he was fighting to keep his eyes on her. She trembled under his touch. "Uhm -- I -- " She faltered to a stop and dropped her gaze from those dark eyes.

"So, your brother is keeping busy?" Small talk, not something he was very good at, but he felt a need to put this woman at ease with him. There was something off here, and he was curious enough to try to find out what.

"Yes. There are -- a lot of arrangements to make and Libby was --," she sniffled and swallowed convulsively. "Was using the lawyer here for a lot of the contracts." Her face crumpled, tears overflowing her eyes. Her hands flew to her face as she turned away, struggling to control the grief over the loss of her cousin. Her hands were also scarred.

Jonathan reached out, pulled her into his arms, turning her to face him, stroking the long soft hair as her head settled against his shoulder. "Let it out," he murmured into her hair, wishing that he could do so as well.

Her arms went around him and held on tightly as she sobbed almost silently against him. He wondered at the silence. Did she hide all her emotions? And why? Libby hadn't told him much about her cousins, only that she was fond of them. And that she was worried about Kelly.

He murmured soothing things to the back of her head. After a few moments she quieted. "Sorry," she mumbled into his shoulder.

"What?" he asked gently.

She pulled back, sniffed a couple of times and tried for a smile. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to -- uhm -- soak your shoulder." She wiped her fingers across the moisture in the hollow of his shoulder where her head had rested.

"It's all right. I'm water proof. I miss her, too."

"She loved you very much." The wide hazel eyes met his. "She told me."

He smiled. Kelly decided he was not just nice looking, but nice inside as well. "I know." His brows drew together in a slight frown. He fought for control of his emotions as the black hole of her loss welled up again. He drew a long breath and released it. "I still wake up expecting to see her," he admitted.

"Have you gone through the paintings? To see if the one's she specified are here?" she asked, trying to steer the conversation to what she hoped would be a less painful topic.

He shook his head. "No. I wasn't sure I wanted to face going through them yet. It makes things -- so final."

"I know. Maybe if we do it together --?"

"Since your brother doesn't have time --"

"And we're due to leave soon --"

"Are you?"

"Yes. There are business things Harve needs to get back to. I don't know what exactly, but he seems to keep really busy."

She moved to where a number of canvases were stacked against the wall. Carefully, as with practice, she pulled each one out so they could look at it. Most of them were commercial commissions, all of them identified on the back with the date completed, the company and the release date of the work for which she had produced it.

There were only a couple of dozen canvases to look at. Only two of them were the ones Libby had left to him. None of them really caught his eye. Finally, she turned to the draped canvas still sitting on the easel, the last thing Libby had worked on. Libby has specified that this one would go to him. She pulled the drape back, her eyes widening. Jonathan reached out and twitched the cover back over the painting, his eyes suddenly like black holes in his face. His color drained and he turned away.

"That's all," he ground out harshly.

Kelly's gaze, still fixed on the draped painting, nodded. She accepted his decision, for now. "Harve thinks we should sell the house," she told him.

Sell it. Yes. Right now, Jonathan wanted nothing so much as to walk out of this house, raze it to the ground and forget it ever existed. He nodded his agreement and headed for the stairway.

Kelly watched him move away from her in fascination. He moved like a cat, all silence and rippling muscles. The dragon tattoo on his back caught the light of the sun and seemed to be grinning at her in secret knowledge.

"Jonathan?" Her voice caught him as he started down the stairs.

"Yes?" He didn't turn back to look at her.

"Don't let this shut you away. Darkness isn't always the comfort you think it is."

Such a small, diffident voice. So different from Libby. Yet as discerning as her cousin had been. He looked back at her. She was a dark silhouette against the sunlight streaming through the windows. "Come have breakfast with me."

Kelly blinked at that. She hadn't expected -- she didn't know what she had expected. "Thank you," she accepted and grabbed up her scarf and sunglasses before she joined him. The scarf was in place, shielding her face, before they reached the door. He wondered at that.

Outside, in the fresh morning air, they both felt better. He led her over to his home, and inside. He pulled on an embroidered black kimono and set about making breakfast. Kelly looked around curiously. Libby had said a lot about her fiancee, but not about his home, or his looks. With all the Japanese influence Libby had mentioned, his tall, dark curly haired looks had come as a surprise. Although the intensity of his being had not.

She carefully did not touch the katana displayed in his living room. She smiled over the low dining table with its thick cushions. Remembering Libby's descriptions of traditional restaurants and homes in Kyoto, she knew that he was showing concern for his guests with those cushions. Normally there were mats of woven straw, not thick cushions.

He brought out a tray and asked her to join him at the more conventionally Western table outside on the covered patio. From what little she did know about Japan, he seemed to have put together breakfast in a traditionally Japanese manner. It was as esthetically pleasing to the eye as it was to the taste buds.

She surprised him by knowing how to handle chopsticks. So very few people he met who were not of oriental background had any idea how to handle them. Libby's knowledge had not surprised him, before he knew she'd been to Japan for several months. Kelly caught his pleased look and smiled.

"Libby insisted I learn. She said she refused to be disgraced by my inability to cope with eating utensils when she took me out." She chuckled as she said it, a grin curving her pale lips. "I don't think I ever told her that I'd picked it up while there was this trio of devastatingly cute Japanese exchange students at school." She got a slightly far away look in her eyes remembering them. Then she came back with a laugh. "Of course, they were high school students and I was in elementary school, so even my proficiency with chopsticks was not inclined to get them to notice me."

That got a smile from her companion. "I'm afraid teenaged boys are not particularly perceptive, regardless of their background."

"Yeah. I noticed."

After breakfast, he walked her out to the car she'd hired. She was standing next to it, saying goodbye, when her brother showed up in a second car. He pulled into the drive next door, ignoring the two of them until he got out and realized that the slender, black clad woman was his sister.

Jonathan saw a look of -- disgust? disapproval? -- pass over the man's face before he strode across to join them

"Kelly." The tone was almost accusatory. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to take a look at the house --"

"I told you I would take care of this," he over rode her. "You know how uncomfortable this sort of thing makes you."

Jonathan could watch the diffident young woman fold under her brother's eyes. His own eyes narrowed, his face becoming colder. "I believe the will left the house jointly to Miss Cheyne and myself," he interposed softly.

Harve's cold eyes traveled over Jonathan and dismissed him. "Yes, it did," he agreed with a false smile. "But, since I handle all my sister's financial matters, I shall be handling this as well." His gaze shifted from one to the other. "You've been through the paintings?"

"Yes."

"Found the ones you want?"

"Not all of them. There are two dozen in New York, the rest are probably there."

"There's more than that," Kelly chimed in without thinking. Something about Jonathan's proximity seemed to lend her the courage to speak up. She opened the door and got into the car.

"Driving yourself?" Harve asked, a strange look on his face. Almost one of -- accusation?

Kelly blanched under the look and question. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I'm neither drunk nor driving at night on a road with deep ditches on either side. I think I can manage," she told him. Jonathan reached into the car and gave her hand a touch of reassurance. Her gaze flickered up to him and away again. Secrets. Painful secrets. He could see them in her eyes, in her brother's attitude.

Curiosity piqued, Jonathan moved back from the car to let Kelly go, if she wished. Harve seemed to interpret his move as retreat, a victory to Harve.

"I'll see you back at the hotel," he told his sister curtly. He nodded to Jonathan and strode back across to the empty house.

Jonathan watched him walk away, then watched Kelly drive off. The girl was not happy. Girl. Hardly that, and yet there was an innocence about her that made her seem younger than her years, and moved him to want to protect her.

Ski drove up as Kelly's car turned the corner and disappeared. He took one look at Jonathan's face and didn't know whether to be glad his friend had found something other than his bereavement to occupy his thoughts, or worried for the same reason. He sensed that Jonathan was on a borderline between his old self and the life he had built while he looked for his son.

"Jonathan."

The younger man looked at his friend and smiled. It was a genuine smile, pleasure in the presence of a friend. Ski smiled back. "Come in."

"So, how's it going?"

Jonathan looked thoughtful. "There's something odd going on."

"Oh? How so?"

He explained his impression of Kelly and her brother. "I think he's taking advantage of her somehow."

"Something to do with the scarring?"

"Yes. And a car accident, I think."

"Should be easy enough to find out. I'll see what I can dig up. Oh, and I got another lead." Ski pulled a piece of creased and folded paper out of his pocket. "Here."

Jonathan took it, looked at the few words scribbled on it and looked at Ski curiously. The big graying golden bear of a man looked abashed. "I didn't say it was major, just a lead."

Jonathan smiled. "It's OK. We'll find him. In the mean time, I want more information on the Cheynes and -- Libby."

"Right."

It took a couple of days to track Kelly back to the accident that scarred her face and hands. The official story from three years earlier was that she'd been drunk, driving home from a party and her car had gone off the road. It had subsequently burst into flame and exploded. The doctors said she was lucky to be alive, if she had waited to get out of the car, she would have been incinerated by the explosion.

The doctors were also very confident that the scarring could be handled with skin grafts over the next two or three years, only a couple of the procedures having been done by now. Given how lovely the lady was, it was curious that they were waiting so long between operations.

The brother was another matter. His "business interests" were difficult to untangle and some of them seemed quite unsavory. All of which made Jonathan feel that Kelly might need rescuing from her brother.

"Now, Jonathan --"

'It's all right, Ski. I'm just going to visit her."

"Right."

Jonathan drove into town to the hotel where the Cheynes were staying. He wasn't quite certain what was wrong, but he was certain that something was. He had not heard from Kelly since the morning they met over Libby's paintings. He had not heard from either of the Cheynes, or their lawyers with regard to the house, or the paintings not in Hawaii that Libby had bequeathed him. He knew that at least three more paintings were somewhere in the States.

He went to the front desk and asked for the Cheyne's room. The desk clerk checked his computer and told him that the Cheyne's had checked out the day before. He thanked the clerk and left.

He called Ski on his cell phone. "Ski."

"Yeah?"

"They've checked out."

"What? That don't make any sense. The house is still here and so are the paintings inside it. When did they leave?"

"Yesterday."

"Jonathan, there's somethin' wrong here."

"My thought exactly."

By the time Jonathan got back to his home, Ski had some more information for him. "I don't like the sound of this," was his pronouncement as he handed the printouts to his friend.

The official records were a little odd. A one car accident. The police report was concise and to the point: one car in the ditch, fire, explosion, damage to the only occupant. Kelly had been drinking, her blood alcohol was over the legal limit. She had been taken to the nearest hospital for burn trauma. The side of her face and her hands had taken the worst of it.

Ski had managed to get copies of the site photos. A deep ditch, a soft shoulder. There were no skid marks, yet the vehicle had taken very little damage aside from the fire. The front end was surprisingly uncrumpled. Jonathan frowned at the pictures. He read Kelly's statement.

"I shouldn't have been driving. I was coming home from a party. I'd been drinking. I guess I didn't realize how much I'd had. I got the keys from my brother and told him I was going. I -- guess I fell asleep. I don't remember losing control or going into the ditch. I woke up after I was in the ditch. I got out and it exploded. I felt the heat, the pain, and that's it. I guess I passed out."

"Short statement."

"Yeah. Accepted responsibility for the accident and that was that."

"If she was passed out, the accident shouldn't have awakened her."

"Only damage to her was the fire."

"That's not logical. If the damage to the car was enough to make the gas tank explode, she should have sustained more damage -- bruising, at the least."

"And if she wasn't damaged, what woke her up? Jonathan, that wasn't an accident. I mean, it wasn't --"

"I know what you mean. The accident was arranged. Kelly should have died."

"But she didn't. She survived. She was friends with Libby. Somebody tried to kill her and did kill Libby." He saw that blank, black look that had frequently crossed Jonathan's face in the weeks since he had lost Libby. "There's a link here. Someone wanted both of them dead, and killed a lot of other people besides when he killed Libby."

"And Kelly's the next victim," Jonathan said quietly. Kelly's finding her own will to deal with Libby's estate was endangering her survival. He looked at Ski, a hard look in his eyes. "Her brother is involved."

"Looks that way. His car. And he runs the family business, handles all the finances. And it looks like his finances are in trouble."

The phone rang.

Jonathan answered it. "Hello?"

"Jonathan? This is Kelly." Her voice sounded small, breathless on the other end.

"Kelly. Where are you?"

"I'm not sure. Harve -- Harve is acting strange. He checked us out of the hotel. He's rented a house, outside of town. Uhm -- I -- He's scaring me. I think -- I think Libby's death has hit him harder than I would have expected. I'm -- I'm going to see if I can get the car and leave, but I don't know the island very well. If I get lost, may I call you?"

"Of course. Kelly, if you -- Kelly?" The connection went dead. "Ski, we need to find her "

Kelly looked at the phone in her hand curiously. Somehow, it didn't seem like the man she had met to hang up on her like that. She put the phone down and moved to the window. She pulled the curtain aside a little and saw Harve walking out to the car. He opened the hood, removed some wires and closed it again. She watched, frowning as he tossed the wires into the bushes beside the driveway. She let the curtain drop before he turned around.

She felt a surge of panic as she looked around the small living room, so unlike the one at the home they shared in the States. Comforting, actually. She was frightened of her brother. There was something very, very wrong with Harve.

She went into the kitchen to make some tea. Tea was soothing. She poured the water into the kettle as the front door opened and closed. She heard him walking around the house and wondered when he'd find her. Then she realized it was odd that he hadn't just called her name when he came in, the way he always did.

Her hands shook as she pulled out a tin of loose tea, English Breakfast, Harve's favorite. She measured the right amount into the tea ball and closed it, then closed the tin and put it away. Always neat, that was Harve's rule.

She stared blankly at the counter for a moment. Harve's rule. Harve's car. Harve's -- always Harve's way. Was that why Libby had never visited once she grew up? Was that why she had no friends, no love interest, no one except her brother to look after her, to care for her?

Too late, she realized that Harve had entered the kitchen. Something cold and wet and slightly sweet smelling was held in place over her mouth and nose as Harve's arm surrounded her and held her tight. Darkness.

Ski called several real estate agents he knew and got lucky. A small, rundown house on the outskirts of the city had been purchased by Harve Cheyne. The man paid cash for the place, which surprised the agent and caused it to stick in her head. "Got it!" he called as he hung up the phone.

Jonathan and Ski piled into the Jeep and took off. Jonathan had a really bad feeling about the abrupt disconnection of the line when he had been talking to Kelly. Twenty minutes later, they pulled up on the street next to the driveway leading up to the small house Harve had purchased. They parked and moved cautiously up the driveway. Ski nearly tripped over the plug wires Harve had removed from the car. He frowned at the wires and shoved them in his pocket. He looked around to see Jonathan slide around the corner of the house into the backyard.

"Be careful," he muttered under his breath as he headed for the front door. You never knew when a direct approach was going to work. Or when it was going to blow up in your face.

Luckily, Havre was explaining to his unconscious sister that the accident she was about to have was really all her fault for surviving the accident three years earlier. "You should have died, you know," he told her conversationally as he poured gasoline around the edges of the room. "It was all set. No one else to get hurt. You should have stayed unconscious. You wouldn't have felt a thing. But no, you have to stumble out of the car and get burned. You couldn't even manage to get clear of the car so I didn't have to look at your grotesque face for the last three years. Not that you were anything to look at anyway, but geez, you got ugly after you got burned."

He surveyed his work and nodded, satisfied. He pulled out a box of matches. "Just a little fire, just an accident in an old house. You won't feel a thing. Not like last time."

Tap, tap. Something tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, almost involuntarily. He saw only the fast approaching fist that nailed his jaw firmly. Jonathan Raven, looking like an ominous thundercloud, stood over the fallen man. There was a black rage in his heart and a red mist clouding his vision. He wanted nothing so much as to take this man apart with his bare hands.

Kelly made an indecipherable sound on the bed and shifted. Her eyes opened and closed. Jonathan moved to the bed to check her. He could smell ether as he got close to her. He checked her pulse, it was steady. He'd only put her to sleep and the drug was beginning to wear off. He leaned over the bed to shake her.

Something solid connected with the back of his head. There was a hollow sound, like a metal can hitting something. Lights flickered in front of his eyes as he fell forward across Kelly. He shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to scramble backwards away from the blow, away from the bed, he took a grazing second blow to the side of the head. He fell backwards off the bed, blocking a third and fourth blow from the nearly empty gas can in Harve's hands.

Thud. Pain. Darkness. Harve looked down at the man on the floor. There was anger in his face and murder in his eyes as he sneered at the man who had seduced his cousin. The back of his head seemed to have contacted solidly with the oak bedside table. He hoped it had cracked under the impact, but he doubted it. Nothing ever seemed to work out that simply for him.

He set the can down and checked Jonathan's pulse. Unconscious. Good. Now, where to put his body? After all, an intruder, an arsonist, setting a fire and getting caught in it, it happened all the time.

Knock. Knock. Now what? He sighed and struck the match. He dropped it near the door to the bedroom and went to answer the front door.

Ski looked at the man answering the door and went into his spiel about collecting for a worthy cause. Harve looked annoyed, disgusted and did his best to get rid of Ski. Then they both smelled smoke. Ski observed that there was a fire behind Harve.

"Man, you got a fire! Damn, get out, man. Get out now!" He shoved Harve out the front door and slammed the door closed behind him. "Jonathan!" he yelled. Silence. He ran toward the doorway and shied back as the flames engulfed the doorway. Damn. He could smell gasoline. He dodged through the thickening smoke and into the kitchen. The back door was locked. He fumbled at the door open and got out of the smoke and into the back yard.

Flames were licking at the curtains of the window to the bedroom where Jonathan and Kelly were. Jonathan, beginning to recover from the blow to the back of his head, choked on the smoke from the fire. He rolled onto his stomach, instinctively keeping his face near the floor, gasping for clean air. Gasoline. He choked on the smell, coughing and gagging. He found the side of the bed and pulled himself up. Kelly.

Crash. The window behind him shattered, smoke and flame taking the easy path out into the air.

"Jonathan!" Ski yelled, flinching back from the flames. Someone struck him across the shoulders with something heavy. He turned to face Harve who had picked up a heavy branch and launched himself at Ski. They grappled in the backyard, fighting for Ski's life while Jonathan tried to focus on getting Kelly off the bed and out of the house.

"Kelly!" he yelled over the fire.

She blinked at him sleepily and coughed. The smoke penetrated her drowsiness. She struggled to focus, reaching up and touching Jonathan. Her fingers touched the back of his head, coming away sticky with blood. Her eyes widened.

"You're hurt," she blurted out and choked on the smoke. She sat up and looked around, discovering the fire. "Harve?" she whispered, suddenly terrified as she put a number of things together.

"Come on. We've got to get out of here." Jonathan pulled her off the bed and to her feet. She staggered and headed for the door, only to be pulled back. "Window."

Her eyes widened and she shied back, the flames holding her attention. "No," she said softly, shaking her head. "I can't."

"Then we'll both die," he told her, shaking his head to try to clear the darkness closing in on him away.

She looked at him and realized he was in trouble. She swallowed and nodded, pulling him toward the burning wall and the window. She took a deep breath and threw herself out the window. Jonathan steadied himself and tried to focus on the window. He sagged and blinked at the window.

"Jonathan!"

He could hear Kelly outside the window, and then Ski, also calling him. He made an effort and pulled his concentration together. He took a deep breath and threw himself through the wall of flame that shot up across the window. He lay on the grass outside, taking in deep breaths of clean air. He could feel hands on him, Ski and Kelly pulling him over to make certain he was all right.

He heard Ski swear at the blood flowing down the back of his friend's head and neck. "Damn it, Jonathan! You're supposed to be careful!" Ski was ignoring his own wounds, a black eye and cut lip, not to mention the bruises on his shoulders where Harve had hit him with the branch.

A few feet away, Harve groaned as he regained consciousness. He shifted and sat up. The house was engulfed in flames. In the distance, a siren sounded. He smiled, then he spotted Kelly, Ski and Jonathan. His face contorted in hatred.

"No!" he screamed and scrambled to his feet. No, he was not going to lose, not now. He ran for the front of the house and the car parked there.

Ski frowned at him, left Jonathan to Kelly for the moment and followed Harve cautiously. He pulled a gun from somewhere on his person and had it cocked and ready when Harve came back around the house, gun in hand. Twin explosions as they both fired. For a moment, Ski wasn't certain if either of them had been hit. Then Harve staggered, lost his grip on his gun, and fell face first onto the grass.

"Damn."

For the second time since he met Libby Harris, Jonathan awoke in the hospital with a throbbing head. He frowned at the ceiling and wondered what he'd done this time. He remembered smoke, and a fire.

"Oh, hi. You're awake."

He looked around and smiled. "Kelly."

She smiled back. "How do you feel?"

"Not bad."

"Which is why you're frowning?" she asked with smile.

"My head hurts."

"Understandable. I think you hit the bedside table with your head when you fell."

That reminded him of the fight. "Your brother?"

She shook her head, tearing up slightly. "Ski had to shoot him. It's OK," she assured him hurriedly. "Well, maybe not OK," she amended, "but necessary. He was going to shoot Ski -- "

"And probably us afterwards?"

She nodded. "I -- " her gaze dropped. How to tell him that Harve had engineered the explosion that killed Libby?

"Let me guess. Harve was responsible for -- for Libby's plane exploding."

She nodded again, this time the tears ran freely. "I am -- so sorry. I didn't know," she said softly. "I -- "

"I know." It hurt, but not as much as not knowing had done. "Financial problems?"

"No. I don't understand at all. I guess -- I found his diary. I didn't know he kept one. But it went back -- oh, to high school, I think. And -- he hated us. He hated sharing what he thought should have been his and only his. There was something really very wrong with Harve. I wish I'd realized sooner. Maybe --"

He reached out and took her hands in his. "Don't. I don't think you could have done anything to help. Are you all right?"

She brightened. Such a little thing, asking how she was, and she was so pleased to be noticed. He found himself thankful he had not had to kill the man, and regretting it at the same time. How her brother could have treated her the way he did was almost incomprehensible.

"I'll be all right. I've had to deal with the police and keeping your friend out of jail and you in the hospital -- I'm discovering that I'm really quite good at organization," she ended with a laugh. "The doctor told Ski that you could go home tomorrow if you woke up today."

"I have to wait until tomorrow?"

"You have a fracture. They want to make sure you haven't done anything really nasty to yourself."

"No wonder it hurts. What will you do now?"

"I have to go home. There are a lot of loose ends to wrap up, business things -- and Libby's estate -- and I get to learn how to do all of it. I'll send the pictures as soon as I find them." She hesitated before continuing. " I thought I'd leave the house to you to dispose of, or whatever. If you don't mind?"

He gazed into her no longer so scared looking hazel eyes for a long moment. Did he mind? No. The house wasn't important, only who and what it had contained. "I can handle it. Will you come back?"

"I dunno. I don't know a lot of people here, you know. I don't know if I'd be welcome."

He smiled at that. "I can't imagine why you wouldn't be. Call me."

"I will." She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I've given Ski my number -- if you just want to talk. I think Libby would approve." She glanced at her watch. "Oh, I've been here too long. They'll throw me out."

She stopped in the doorway and looked back at him. "I've had the three paintings that were here put in your house. Ski found a place to stack them. That's OK?"

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Yes. Thank you."

Kelly had to leave Hawaii before Jonathan got out of the hospital. Ski saw her off and reported that the plane had left without incident. He drove Jonathan home, talking about anything and everything and nothing. At least it didn't make his headache.

The house still seemed empty, until he walked into the living room to find a sheet-draped easel. "Ski."

"I couldn't figure out where else to put it," Ski put in before Jonathan could say anything else.

"It's all right." He took a breath, centered down and pulled the sheet away. It was a large canvas. At the top, on each corner, were two women, one oriental in kimono and long black hair; one auburn-haired and medieval gowned. Their hair flowed together to form a backdrop for the other figures. Ski armed with his guns faced left, Jonathan Raven armed with a katana faced right. In the center were four faces, the bottom one unformed, the next one up youthful and male, a combination of the features of the oriental female and Raven. The upper two were apparently female, but unfilled in, one turned toward Ski and one toward Jonathan. Entwined around it all were the sinuous coils of an oriental dragon, black scales shimmered with silver.

"Damn," Ski breathed behind him. "That is one Hell of a painting."

Fin.


End file.
